


A Thousand Children

by marty_mcfly_jr



Series: The Hero [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hero Rumplestiltskin Mr Gold, Ogre Wars (Once Upon a Time), Ogres
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2020-02-09 14:43:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18640222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marty_mcfly_jr/pseuds/marty_mcfly_jr
Summary: There's a new Dark One. Suddenly, the children see the tide turn while fighting a hopeless war.





	1. Chapter 1

An ogre was ripping him apart. 

Morraine could do nothing but watch and wait for her own turn. After the boy is dead, the ogre will turn to her. She had no where to go. If she ran back, there were three more ogres in the process of destroying more of her friends. She was in the middle of a horror that she couldn’t escape. She could almost feel the sharp claws on her skin, cutting deep into her organs. She sat on the ground and hoped the ogres will not notice her.

Suddenly, the ogre disappeared. She looked back. She saw her friends on the ground, but no ogres. She hurried to them. They were bleeding and dying. She tried to bandage them up. She didn’t know who to help first. They were all so torn apart. She stopped by her closest friend and neighbor who was so badly hurt that she was at death's door. Morraine did what she could to make her friend comfortable.

“Tell my parents I tried,” her friend said, tears falling on her face and getting soaked into the ground along with her blood.

“I will…” Morraine said sobbing silently and holding her dying friend by the hand.

“Tell them,” her friend breathed heavily, “tell them I love them”

“Tell ’em yourself” a loud giggly voice said from behind Morraine.

Morraine turned to see a lizard-like monstrous creature laughing at her.

“Can’t you see she is dying?” Morraine whispered angrily, trying to shoo that imp away.

“Not anymore,” he giggled and disappeared.

She looked back at her friend. She was still bloody, but she looked completely whole, and _alive_.

“Wha-” Morraine started in amazement.

“That thing healed me.” Her friend said. “He waved his hand and some purple smoke appeared and… I don’t know, I just felt better."

Morraine, tears still running down her cheeks, just stared at her friend and started laughing with relief.

They felt like they were waking up from a terrible nightmare just to see that everything was OK.

“Something happened to his skin when he healed me,” her friend told her. “He became more lizard-like.”

They looked around and saw that there were no ogres, and that all the children who were dying were now walking around looking for each other.

The children huddled together in random spots, some of them calling to the benevolent creature to heal their friends.

Morraine saw the imp again a half hour later. He came back because a boy was crying for help.

The boy pointed at his friend on the ground.

“This one is dead,” the imp giggled rudely, “I can’t fix him,” he announced gleefully, “that’s why I didn’t,” he giggled again.

Morraine approached the strange-looking man and looked closely at his face.

She suddenly felt faint and stumbled backwards when she thought she recognized the imp.

It was none other than her other neighbor Rumplestiltskin! He was Baelfire’s father! She remembered that today was Baelfire’s birthday. She completely forgot about it during the war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was just thinking about Morraine and decided to write... I didn't even finish the chapter and not sure where I'm going with this... should I make it a story? I'll think about it...


	2. Chapter 2

Morraine was not sure if she should be happy or worried to see that this peculiar creature was her friend’s father.

He looked even more distorted than he did an hour ago. It appeared that every time he healed someone his look became more and more grotesque.

“C-can you take us home?” Morraine asked timidly.

“Oh, that’s right!” Rumplestiltskin said. He opened his eyes, like a lightbulb turned on in his brain. He giggled again, and twirled his wrists glamorously.

“You can’t just be left here. How would you know the way home?” He shrieked gleefully. “Gather around, boys and girls of the frontlands!” He waved his hands gesturing grandly. “We’re going home!”

The children drifted towards the monster like moths drawn to light. He divided them into groups according to which town they lived in.

And he led them home.

All one thousand children.

The boy whose friend was dead, wanted to take his body with them, but the Dark One refused. He sing-songed that a dead weight will just slow them down.

When they arrived at that boy’s town, Rumplestiltskin urged him to go home to his parents, but the boy lingered in front of his dead friend’s hut.

“You don’t have to be the one to tell his parents, and family, ” the imp wagged his finger in the boy’s face dramatically.

“Only his father,” the boy said sadly. It’s the only family he’s got.”

Rumplestiltskin looked like he’d swallowed a frog, whole, but he recovered two seconds later and his impish giggle returned.

“Well, run along now,” he announced with flourish, “I have fifty-seven more towns to go to. Tick tock!”

Morraine’s town was last. She went into her warm home, and reunited with her parents. They were so happy to see her. They kissed and hugged their daughter, and urged her to eat and drink and rest.

When she went into her room to sleep, she decided to look out of her window at the hovel next door.

She saw her next door neighbor, Rumplestiltskin, walk out of his home. She looked after him curiously. Where could he be going? She hasn’t seen her friend, Baelfire since she was drafted, so she decided to sneak out of her house and visit him.

“Happy birthday,” she said when Baelfire opened the door for her.

“Hi, Morraine,” Baelfire answered a bit gloomily.

Morraine felt so sorry for her friend. She had witnessed his papa’s gradual transformation first-hand. She could only imagine the horror Baelfire must feel at seeing his only family, his warm and loving papa, suddenly look like a monster.

“Where did your papa go?” She asked.

“Said he needed to do something.” Baelfire said unenthusiasticly.

Morraine decided to follow Baelfire’s papa.

He was not limping anymore, but he walked slowly, thoughtfully. She followed him all the way to the battlefield.

He bent over that dead child. She thought she heard sniffing – could it be? Was he crying? He conjured a stretcher and placed the child carefully onto it. He waved his hand over the boy and suddenly the boy looked whole. He was still dead, but his limbs were not ripped apart and the blood was cleaned. The little boy looked like he was peacefully sleeping.

Rumplestiltskin then carried the stretcher all the way to the boy’s father’s hut. He left the boy outside the door with a letter and a solid gold badge of honor.

He then knocked on the door and poofed away.

Morraine was exhausted and wished she could also poof home to her bed. She knew the way by then, and walked herself home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should I have Morraine witness the bean episode? It was her idea to call the blue fairy.


	3. Chapter 3

Morraine was sitting on the rug in her room weaving a fancy basket for her mother’s birthday. She’s never done this before and was concentrating heavily on her task.

She couldn’t say that her life went back to normal, because it didn’t. _Normal_ was perpetual fear of the duke, hard, back-breaking work to pay taxes, and constant starvation. Life was more comfortable now; peaceful.

Morraine and her friends had time to develop hobbies, and play games. The boys were found outside playing different sports, now that there was more free time for just plain fun.

Her girlfriend showed her how to weave the other day. It was the girl who almost died in that horrible war, which was nothing but a distant memory by now. Morraine immediately thought about making this basket for her mother. They both went to the market and her friend helped her pick the best materials.

There was lots of food and luxuries for sale in the market, and most of the time Morraine and her friends were able to afford to buy from it.

‘”did you _hear_???” Morraine heard Madam Beucamp’s shrill voice cut through her thoughts. Madam Beucamp lived in the big house by the seaport.

‘The Dark One turned a man into a snail and _stepped_ on him!’

Morraine stopped weaving and listened. This was new. The gossip wasn’t new, though. All of her townsfolk, now, with more time on their hands, liked to gossip about her neighbor, Rumpelstiltskin. The new monster. Ugly. Grotesque. Did you _see_ his face?

The boys would tease her friend Baelfire. Their parents would snub the former village coward-turned-monster. Baelfire’s papa never really had many admirers in the village. He was too quiet. He wasn’t very _manly_. As grateful as they were to Rumpelstiltskin for bringing their children home, it bothered many of them that _this man_ , of all people, did what none of them could do.

It wasn’t the first time her mother got visitors, all out of breath, telling her stories about her hideous neighbor. But the stories were never about outright murder!

Because she waa Rumple's next-door neighbor, Morraine saw how hard it was for him to restrain the darkness within himself. Her heart went out to poor Baelfire having to live with that struggle every day.

Rumpelstiltskin mainly ignored the gossip and the snobbery. He even ignored the name calling and minor infractions against Baelfire -though they made him _very_ angry. Everyone in their village knew not to cause _real_ harm to Baelfire or they would be minced meat.

Morraine came out to their living room and asked politely, “did you really see it happen?”

The neighbor gleefully repeated the story to Morraine with all the gory details. When she described the man who died as a snail, Morraine realized that she had encountered him before.

He was not a good man. He was one of the Duke’s higher ups. Years ago, when the village kids were starving, he would promise food to little girls who would “go with him”. Her friend went one time and he molested her before giving her a stale slice of bread.

Still. Rumpelstiltskin murdered someone, and Morraine knew that his relationship with the town will get even worse.

She made a mental note to go talk to Bae later.


End file.
